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Geography: Water, Water Everywhere
Students discuss flooding and its causes. They view a Powerpoint presentation about floods and prevention methods. After creating a model with clay and pans, they investigate river behavior in various terrains with different amounts of...
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Where is Here?
Students are shown the very basics of navigation. The concepts of relative and absolute location, latitude, longitude and cardinal directions are discussed, as well as the use and principles of a map and compass.
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Volcanic Panic!
Students begin with an overview of the Earth's interior and how volcanoes form. They learn how engineers predict eruptions. In a class demonstration, students watch and measure a mock volcanic eruption and observe the phases of an...
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See Spot Run
Students identify several properties of water as a universal substance, describe the composition of several complex color mixtures and separate the components of dye using chromatographic technique.
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TE Lesson: Energy Transfer in Musical Instruments
Learners study concepts of energy and energy transfer. They look at how these concepts apply to musical instruments. They study the law of conservation of energy. They use the concepts studied in the lesson to design a musical instrument.
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Skyscrapers: Engineering Up!
Middle schoolers build their own newspaper skyscrapers with limited materials and time. They identify several different structural engineering principles relating to skyscrapers. They explain how their towers resisted the wind load.
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Earthquakes Rock!
Learners study the main methods to measure earthquakes; the Richter Scale and Mercalli Scale. They make a model of a seismograph and investigate which structural designs are most likely to survive an earthquake.
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Fighting Back!
Fifth graders inspect the basic functions of the immune system and determine how viruses and bacteria invade the immune system. They also explore what happens to the immune system in outer space.
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Riding the Radio Waves
Learners examine the basic concepts of radio waves and magnetic fields. They study how the AM radios are built and demonstrate the concepts of amplitude and frequency.
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Digestive System
Learners analyze how the digestive system works by taking the food we eat and breaking it down for our bodies to use for various reasons. They list the major components of the digestive system and draw a diagram. They explain how...
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TE Lesson: I've Got Issues!
Students study environmental issues from different perspectives. They look at the issues from the view of both preservationists and conservationists as they identify themselves with one group or the other. They determine how teamwork...
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TE Lesson: Pollution Solutions
Students study how industrial technology helps clean up and prevent air pollution. They role play as engineers to examine methods of engineering pollutant recovery methods such as scrubbers, electrostatic precipitators, cyclones, and...
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Simple Machines and Modern Day Engineering Analogies
Students apply the mechanical advantages and problem-solving capabilities of six types of simple machines (wedge, wheel and axle, lever, inclined plane, screw, pulley) as they discuss modern structures in the spirit of the engineers and...
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Sounds Like Music
Students define and examine the connections between sound and music and how engineers design instruments. They listen to examples of musical instruments, view a demonstration of a tuning fork and bottles filled with varying amounts of...
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Time for Design
Students are introduced to the design process used in engineering. They compare and contrast this process with the steps followed in the scientific method. Students then participate in a brainstorming session that asks them to design a...
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Crash! Bang!
Students study the physical force of linear momentum by investigating collisions. They analyze the difference between elastic and inelastic collisions. They calculate linear momentum.
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Tornado!
Students examine the characteristics and types of tornadoes. They discuss how they are formed, conduct an experiment with two liter bottles, analyze data and determine mean and median, and design a house to withstand tornado-force winds
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Rock Solid
Students investigate the three types of material stress related to rocks. They watch a PowerPoint Presentation, view an online animation of the three types of rock stress, identify the various types of rocks, answer true or false...
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Spring Has Sprung
Spring lesson plan ideas can allow students and teachers a chance to use the outdoors as a classroom and a source of study topics.
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It's Alive! Using Microorganisms in Cooking
Students create a KWL chart about food. In this chemistry lesson, students differentiate physical and chemical changes. They explain how microorganisms are used in food preparation.
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Muscles, Oh My!
Students explore the human muscular system. For this science lesson, students discuss how engineering is related to the field of bio-mechanics and human movement.
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Determining the Age of Fossils
Students examine the concept of radioactive dating. In this radioactive dating lesson, students investigate how to determine the ages of fossils and rocks as they learn about half-life radioactive decay.
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What is Energy?
Students define energy and identify the different types that exist. They identify places they see, hear or feel energy. They understand the role of engineering in finding and testing sources of energy for the production of electricity.
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Harvesting Oil from the Earth
Fourth graders research sources of fossil fuels especially oil while determining how scientists take core samples from an Earth model. They look at oil consumption and production in the US and throughout the world.